


Back Then

by FandomAnonymity



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomAnonymity/pseuds/FandomAnonymity
Summary: On a night out, Jack tells the team about how she joined the army and who she looked up to when she was in Basic Training. (Trigger Warning for mentions of rape and an incident of uncomfortable cat calling)
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	1. Team Army

The sounds of laughter filled the bar as the team spent another night out together following the success of another murder investigation. Now that Gibbs had gone out with them once, they couldn't get him to stay away much anymore. He would try to decline their invitations, but somehow...he always found himself right back at that same table at their favorite bar, listening to ridiculous stories from each of his team members. Sometimes their stories even made him blush from second hand embarrassment. Especially when Jimmy told them stories about when he was in high school and everyone would burst out with laughter, Jethro tipping another drink back to stop himself from laughing and showing them he was really enjoying himself.

"Hey, Sloane." Ellie said at one point.

"Yeah?" Jack responded mid-chuckle from whatever Jimmy had just said.

"Ever since you got here, we've all been wondering the same thing." The younger blonde admitted.

"Ever since I got to this bar or-"

"No. Ever since you got _**here**_ here. In DC."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Jack asked, taking another sip of her beer.

"Are you Team Army or Team Navy?" Ellie brought back the question she, Nick, and McGee had discussed upon Jack's arrival.

Jack let out another chuckle. "What kind of question is that? You all know I was an Army Lieutenant, right?" She asked sarcastically.

"So? Now you work to help Navy vets and to stop criminal activity against the Navy. So which is it?" Nick jumped in.

"I'm not even gonna answer that question." She shook her head with another chuckle.

"Oh, come on, Sloane."

"No. I mean….Gibbs was in the Marines. None of you have ever asked him a question like that, have you? Or Vance, for that matter?" Jack pointed out.

"Vance went to a Naval Academy." McGee said.

"I know that. But why are you even asking?" Jack softly laughed, taking another sip of her beer. "I feel like I'm in interrogation." She joked.

"Ah, who cares if she's Team anything." Kasie stated. "I wanna hear the story about how you first joined the Army and who trained you to be such a badass."

"Ooo, me too." Eliie admitted.

"That sounds like a **_great_** story." Jimmy said, intrigued already.

"Yeah, who made you to be so cool?" Nick wondered.

"Oh, please. I've always been cool. You should've met me in college." Jack joked again, taking a sip of her drink, just barely catching Gibbs' eyes across from her and he looked like he knew she was hiding something from them. Jack ignored the look Gibbs gave her and continued to talk. "My drill sergeant was pretty cool too. I really looked up to her."

"Her?" Ellie smiled to hear that Jack's drill sergeant was a female. "In 1990?"

"Mhm." Jack nodded.

"I thought the Army didn't have its first female drill sergeant until '93, Jack." McGee challenged.

"That's because my drill sergeant was never legally ranked as one. Her unit tried pulling some strings back then, but the Army wouldn't budge. The unit let her train us anyway. Technically, she was the very first woman to train recruits. They just never gave her the bars she deserved. And by the time the first official female drill sergeant was appointed, she had moved on to become Lieutenant. Which was far above being a drill sergeant."

"Wait, Lieutenant? **_Before_** becoming a drill sergeant?" Kasie asked.

"Yeah, the first female Lieutenant Colonel was in 1947." McGee said.

"That's so dumb. That women could be Lieutenant Colonels in the forties, but they weren't allowed to train recruits until '93. How does that even make sense?" Ellie asked.

"It doesn't." Gibbs pointed out in a tone that told them, yeah, it sucked, but that's how it worked and it's over now.

They were all silent for a moment after Gibbs said that before Jack started to speak again.

"Anyway, my drill sergeant was amazing. She saved my life. In more ways than one." Jack said, suddenly thinking back to another time in her life.

* * *

_"On your feet! Let's go!"_

_Suddenly, the sound of army boots hitting the floor in the female army recruit bunker awoke Jack on her first morning and she internally panicked, quickly standing and putting her own boots on as quickly as possible before getting in the line up with the other women, her army stance already strong and confident._

_Once every woman was in line, the woman who had awoken them with her voice began to walk up and down the line, sizing up the recruits with her eyes. A part of Jack felt excited and lucky to be in the presence of a woman in authority considering the reason she decided to join the army in the first place was to get away from toxic men who believe they're in charge. At nineteen years old, Jack never imagined this was where she would be. But seeing the woman in front of her, having another woman allowed to judge her performance felt great and had relaxed Jack. She wasn't afraid of getting into trouble for the small things a man would be strict about._

_This thought process was a mistake, Jack quickly learned, because she felt comfortable enough, too comfortable, to let out a loud yawn in the middle of her sergeant's walk up the line and the sergeant stopped dead in her tracks, turning to look at Jack. "Was that a yawn I just heard?"_

_"No."_

_"No, what?" The sergeant spoke sternly._

_"No, ma'am." Jack said quietly._

_"I didn't hear that, recruit."_

_"No, ma'am!" Jack said louder and more sternly herself._

_"Good." The sergeant began to address the rest of the line up. "Because, here….there is no yawning. No whining about being tired and no hoping for a break. From here on out, you will all expect nothing from me but the harsh training you will be going through. I want you all to know that just because I am a woman….there will be no girl's nights...no manicures….no gossipping about men….and no sympathy from me. Do you understand?"_

_"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!" All the recruits shouted, waking Jack up even more._

_"That's right….I am here to make you all into the best soldiers you can be and with that comes no emotional outbursts….no taking it easy on you and no feeling sorry for yourselves. From now on, I want you all to think like men….like the ones we will be fighting. Because they will have no sympathy for any of you. Do you expect any of them to take pity on the female he captures?"_

_"Ma'am, no, ma'am!"_

_"Good. Because they won't. In fact...they will think of you as the weak ones and grill you harder than the men they capture, expecting you to crack with any information you may have against their enemy. They will expect the small and meak female to give in the moment they capture you. Do you understand why you must be stronger?"_

_"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!" They all shouted even louder than the other two times, thus receiving a small crack of a smile on the sergeant's face._

_"Good." She allowed her smirk to vanish before giving them her next order. "Everyone outside in five!" She turned and left the bunker._

_"We have to get dressed in five minutes?" Jack asked the girl next to her._

_"Do you want to get in trouble?" The girl responded._

_"No, but that's imposs-"_

_"Then you better get dressed in five." The girl interrupted Jack and went to her bed to get her own clothes on, not allowing the new girl to make her late._

_Jack watched all the others get dressed as fast as possible before she quickly went to do the same, just barely making it on time to head out to the training field with the others...the male recruits joining them outside in the line up._

* * *

"Jack? Jack!" Ellie said at the table in the bar, waving a hand in front of her face.

"Hm?" Jack snapped out of her daze, thinking of her memory. "What?"

"You were about to tell us how your drill sergeant saved your life." McGee told her.

"Oh….That's right." Jack chuckled. "That's actually a bit of a depressing story."

"No. I bet it'll be empowering." Kasie corrected.

"Guys….She doesn't have to tell us if she doesn't want to." Gibbs said in a fatherly tone.

"No, it's alright, Gibbs." Jack said. "You're all like my family now. I think it's time you knew a bit more about what happened to me."


	2. Pain In The Ass

“Jack, I’m so sorry.” Ellie put her hand on top of Jack’s on the table.

“We had no idea you even had a daughter.” McGee said.

“I can’t believe that was her the whole time. That nurse from the hospital shooter case? Wow.” Kasie said, stunned.

“It now makes sense that you left the crime scene.” McGee was standing behind her and placed a caring hand on her back.

“But why did you keep it a secret from us? You know we understand.” Kasie said.

“It wasn’t a secret. I just...didn’t want anyone to treat me any differently or to even…” Her eyes fell to Nick who was staring down at the table, clenching his jaw angrily. “...do that, Torres.” Jack said, bringing everyone else’s attention to Nick’s expression.

“Do what?” Nick asked, finally looking at her.

“You guys are oddly so much alike.” Jack said, looking between Gibbs and Torres. “He had that same look when I told him.”

“What look?” Both Gibbs and Nick asked at the same time.

“The one that says you’re about to go all ‘knight-in-shining-armor’ on the guy. Forget about it. It’s over.”

“My baby sister was raped.” Nick said out of the blue. “It pisses me off when I hear more stories.”

Jack’s face fell when he said that and the rest of the table went silent again before Jack could find her voice again. “I’m sorry, Nick.”

“What are **_you_** sorry for?” Torres asked her, fiddling with the beer bottle in his hand.

“So that’s why you joined the army.” Ellie said, bringing up the other part of the conversation again.

“I thought I could get away. I needed to. And after giving up Faith...I felt lost and I didn’t know what else I wanted to do with my life. I couldn’t go back to school.” She shook her head. “No. Not with him there. And I couldn’t tell anybody what happened. When I dropped out, my parents were….not happy with me….and I was too ashamed to explain to them why I did it. So….going into the army stopped all the questions. Instead of being disappointed in me….they were proud of me again.”

“Wait. What about Faith? Do they know about her?” Ellie asked.

“Oh. No...I never went home while I was pregnant.” Jack admitted.

“Wow.” Kasie said in sad disbelief.

“So what happened with your drill sergeant?” McGee asked.

Jack chuckled a bit at the memory.

* * *

_“Are you crying **again,** Sloane?” The sergeant asked with annoyance in her tone._

_“No.” Jack sniffled as she tried her best to climb up the rope hanging down the wall outside at the training camp._

_“God, I am **sick** of this. Recruits….Look at her. You have no strength while you’re crying, Jackie. Pull it together and get over that wall!” She demanded._

_“I’m trying.” Jack let out a small grunt as she jumped up onto the rope again and her arms felt like noodles after the 200 pushups the sergeant had made them do that morning. Her arms failed her and she fell again, the mud up to her ankles._

_“With an ass like that, you’d think she’d be able to get up.” One of the male recruits watching nearby said to his friend._

_“I know **something** she can get up.” His friend responded with a perverted grin._

_Jack heard them over her shoulder and she clenched her jaw before turning around, punching the first guy in the face and she grabbed his friend’s arm, flipping him up into the air over her shoulder and he fell flat on his back in the mud. Jack pressed a knee into the boy’s chest just before her sergeant pulled her off of him._

_“That is enough, Sloane! Back to your bunker now! I want to see you in my office at 0800!”_

_“But, Sergeant, they-”_

_“Now!!!!!” The sergeant shouted._

_Jack rolled her eyes, looking down at the man on the ground before she stormed off, her tears falling even harder than before. She made it to the bunker, slamming the door shut since she was the only one in there and she went to her bed, plopping down on it and she leaned over with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands and she let it all out, sobbing harder than she had since that night when Rick left her in her college dorm room, broken._

_She cried for about half an hour before she finally pulled herself together and she stood up, going to take a shower, expecting it to be her last one here._

_Once she was out of the shower, the rest of the female recruits from her unit returned from training and got ready for showers themselves while Jack put her hair back and made herself look a bit more presentable for the sergeant. Soon it was time for her to go to the sergeant’s office and she wondered if she should have packed her bags first, but it was too late now and the sergeant hated it when Jack was late, so she just went, ignoring her screaming anxiety on the way over._

_Standing in the doorway of the office, Jack lightly knocked on the door. “Ma’am?” She tried her best not to seem so upset about the day she had._

_“Come on in.” The sergeant sighed, writing something down on some paperwork before looking up at the young blonde. “Close the door.”_

_Jack nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” She closed the door behind her and went to stand directly in front of the sergeant’s desk in an army stance with her hands behind her back._

_“You have been a pain in the ass since you got here, Sloane.” Sergeant said, setting her pen down. “I should have known on your first day when you yawned that you were going to be difficult to handle. Crying everyday. Exploding at the men around you. Ignoring your fellow female recruits when they ask you for something.”_

_“Ma’am, I-”_

_“Do not interrupt me.”_

_Jack bit her lip and nodded once._

_“I’ve spoken to your comrades and all of them have told me that you refuse to even make an effort to have any friends.”_

_“I didn’t come here to make friends, Sergeant. I-”_

_“No, but you came here to join the army. Which means you have to be a team member. Without teamwork, the army does not work. Do you get it? This is not about you. I don’t know what your selfish reasoning is for being here...but you have to forget about it.”_

_“Selfish?” Jack nearly scoffed._

_“Yes, selfish. Being in the army is not supposed to be some escape for you to feel more important than anyone. No matter how they wronged you. You are here to protect the country and one slip-up out in the field will cost you and your fellow soldiers’ lives. Consider this your last warning, Sloane. Anymore fights….anymore crying….or lack of teamwork effort from you and you are out of my unit. Understood?”_

_Jack bit the inside of her cheek, trying her best not to back talk and she nodded once. “Understood, ma’am.”_

_“You are dismissed.” The sergeant said, looking back down at her papers._

_Jack held in a sigh before she turned to head for the door._

_“Oh, and Sloane?”_

_“Yes, ma’am?” Jack turned to look at her again._

_“Don’t let whatever that man did to you become your main personality trait.” She looked up at Jack again._

_“Ma’am?” The recruit looked at her sergeant with confusion._

_“Come on….attacking every guy that speaks to you must mean one hurt you back home. Am I right?”_

_Jack couldn’t even answer as she just weakly smiled a bit, unsure of what to say and stunned, even starstruck, that her sergeant was that smart._

_“The fact that you’re here and he’s not...already shows that you can be the **better **person…..Now go out there and prove it.”_

_Jack stood there for a second, taking in what the sergeant had just said and she nodded once more before leaving, heading back to her bunker with the woman’s words replaying in her head…..Be better than him. That’s what Jack needed to do. And from that day forward...she was._

* * *

“Wow. I can totally see you kicking everyone’s asses and getting in trouble for it.” Kasie laughed.

Jack softly laughed as well. “Oh, always.” She finished her beer and set it down on the table.

“I’ll get you another.” Gibbs said, grabbing the bottle and standing up to go back to the bar to order more for everyone.


	3. Maybe Crawling Is Safer

“Boss. Right on time.” McGee said when Gibbs returned with six new beers in his hands.

“Right on time for what?” Gibbs asked, setting the drinks on the table.

“Sloane was about to tell us about the time her drill sergeant saved her life.” Nick told him.

“About the first time she saved my life.” Jack corrected and everyone smiled, already excited to hear the story.

* * *

_“Come on, Jackie. Have a drink.” One of Sloane’s new friends from her unit said._

_“It’s New Year’s.” Another one said._

_“I told you, guys. I don’t drink.” Jack waved them off with a small, pained chuckle._

_“Never? Not once?” The first girl asked._

_Jack just shrugged without an answer._

_“What are you afraid of? It’s just one drink. You won’t get drunk from one drink.”_

_“Did you see her push ups when she first got here?” One of the guys nearby asked. “I bet she **would** get drunk from one drink.” He chuckled and his friends laughed._

_Jack glared at him before grabbing the bottle of whiskey everyone was sharing and she downed the whole thing in one go. Her girl friends all cheered for her and some of the guys even did too. That right there was a big mistake...Their approval only egged her on more as well as feeling like she had somehow defeated the boy who challenged her and she began to drink more and more...all night until she was just as hammered as that night of the Homecoming dance._

_One by one, her fellow recruits started to head back to the training camp from the bar and soon, Jack was alone with a few other male recruits. One began to ask her if she needed a ride back to the base but she refused to let him near her, soon stumbling out of the bar and beginning to walk home in the dark. It was a cold night and she hadn’t brought a jacket, just barely staying on her feet as she mumbled to herself on the way back._

_It wasn’t long before she wobbled into the road, almost colliding with an oncoming car, but it luckily swerved out of the way just in time to miss her, beeping their horn. Still struggling to walk, Jack mumbled to herself again. “Maybe crawling is safer.” She got down on her hands and knees by the yellow road line, trying to crawl the rest of the way to the base, but she even lost her balance on her hands and knees, rolling down into a ditch, drunkenly laughing at herself. “Five, four, three, two, one.” She slowly counted, laying on her back looking up at the sky. “Hmm, Happy New Year!” She laughed some more before humming sleepily and her eyes closed before she fell right to sleep._

_The next thing she could remember was waking up in an unfamiliar place. Her eyes barely blinking open as her head pounded. She studied the ceiling above her as if trying to figure out where she was before she heard a familiar voice. “You’re awake. Good.”_

_Jack internally panicked when she heard that voice and she quickly sat up before groaning in pain, putting a hand to her head._

_“Easy. That’s gonna be a hell of a hangover.” Her sergeant walked over with a glass of water and some aspirin, handing them to her. “Here. This really helps me when I’ve had too much to drink.”_

_Jack looked up at her mentor with confusion before taking the water and aspirin from her and she took it quickly before asking the other woman, “How did I get here?”_

_“I was on the way back from my officer’s New Year’s Eve party last night and I found you passed out cold in a ditch.”_

_“You carried me to your car?” Jack asked in disbelief._

_“I’m stronger than I look.” Her sergeant chuckled. “It’s a good thing too. It actually snowed in California last night. If you were out there any longer, you may have froze to death.”_

_Jack sighed, upset she didn’t get to see the snow.. “I missed it.”_

_“You’ll travel somewhere north and see some another day.” The older woman tried to encourage._

_Some moments later, Jack felt a bit better and she stood up, starting to walk around the place, looking around and studying it. “Is this your house?” She finally asked at some point._

_“Temporarily.” Sergeant admitted, having a sip of her morning coffee._

_“Temporarily? Are you going somewhere?” Jack wondered._

_“Yeah. Once my assignment here is done, I’m being sent back to my home state…...Finally…..I miss my dad.” She said, watching Jack explore._

_“Am I being kicked out?” Jack randomly asked._

_“Kicked out?”_

_“Of training….for getting drunk last night?” Jack pointed out._

_“No. If people got kicked out of training for drinking, there’d only be one or two soldiers.” She softly laughed._

_Jack smiled when she finally got to hear her mentor laugh. “How long have you been in the army?”_

_“Five, almost six years now.” The sergeant answered. “Started in ‘85.”_

_“Why did you join?” Jack took a sip of her water as she waited for an answer._

_“My dad. I wanted to make him proud. And I’ve never really been very good at anything, and I couldn’t afford college, so the army made sense to me.”_

_“Well….I think you’re a very good sergeant.” Jack admitted._

_“Hm….really? Then why’d it take you so long to listen to me?” The older woman chuckled._

_“I admit...when I first came here, I was angry at the world.” Jack replied._

_“I could see it.” Sergeant nodded. “But you should go back to studying Forensic Psychology. I read it in your file. That’s what you were studying in college before you dropped out. I think you should go back to studying it when you can. It’ll maybe help you understand what happened to you.”_

_“What do you know about what happened to me?” Jack tried not to snap at her._

_“I know I’ve seen that face before. You think you’re the only one who’s gone through what you went through? Believe me, there are days when I want to punch every guy I look at too.”_

_“Serge...you-”_

_“Mhm.” She nodded. “It was my Commanding Officer...so I couldn’t tell anyone about it. They either would not have believed me or I would have been kicked out and he’d probably have gotten promoted.” She rolled her eyes._

_Jack’s eyes teared up and she pinched the bridge of her nose, trying not to cry, knowing how much the sergeant hated it when she did. Once she stopped her tears, she looked at the sergeant again. “How are you so strong?”_

_“What he did, did not kill me. And that’s what I think about everyday. And I’m going to continue to move on and be happy with my life, because it shows him that he did not take a piece of me. Just like the guy that hurt you did not take a piece of you either, Jackie. They were both egotistical men who are not strong enough to understand that not all women want what’s in their pants. That’s not our fault. Nor is what happened.”_

_Jack let out a shaky breath, tearing up again and she nodded, taking in every word and believing them wholeheartedly. “Thank you, ma’am.”_

_“Please...don’t call me that here. It makes me feel so old.” Sergeant chuckled. “I’m not even 30 yet.”_

_“You’re not?”_

_“No. I got one more year, Jackie.”_

_“You’re only ten years older than me?” Jack asked, in awe of her._

_“Mhm”_

_“And you’re a female drill sergeant.” Jack smiled. “That’s really cool.”_

_The sergeant chuckled again._

_“Hey, Sergeant?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Call me Jack.” The younger one said. “It sounds stronger.”_

_“Whatever you want, Jack.” She smiled at her. “I like the sound of that._

* * *

“What happened after that?” McGee asked Jack before taking a bite of the nachos Nick had ordered.

“Well...she and I were very close for the rest of my basic training. She really did become a mentor to me and taught me everything I know before she was sent away on another assignment and I never saw her again.”

“You didn’t keep in touch?” Ellie wondered.

“No. Keeping in touch wasn’t as easy back then as it is now. I didn’t get a cell phone until 2004.” Jack softly laughed. “And neither of us knew the other’s address to send letters.”

“That’s so sad.” Kasie said. “You never saw her again? Ever?”

Jack thought for a second. “Actually….I did see her one more time...and it was probably the most important time….To me, at least.”

“The other time she saved your life.” Gibbs assumed and Jack nodded.


	4. Afghanistan, 2007

_“We got you….we got you.” Vance said to Jack who clung to him when he let her know that she was safe now, the rest of his unit breaking into the door behind him to look for more insurgents and prisoners._

_“Come on.” One of the female U.S. soldiers at the door said. “Let’s get her out of here!”_

_Vance nodded, helping Jack to her feet and guiding her outside to the jeep they had come in, helping her up into the back of it before they drove away, heading for the U.S. base to get Jack into the infirmary for her injuries._

_Once they were miles away from where Masahun had been holding Jack captive, the female soldier spoke to Vance. “The air strike is headed toward the enemy’s headquarters as we speak.”_

_Jack recognized her voice right away. “S-Sergeant Mann?” Sloane’s voice shook as she spoke, still shaken up from everything she had just gone through. She got a better look at the woman sitting in the back of the jeep beside her. “It’s you...It’s you.” She said, emotionally drained though she was grateful to see her mentor again after so many years and she fell into the woman’s arms next to her._

_“Hi, Jack.” Her old drill sergeant said, putting an arm around Jack’s shoulders. “You’re safe now.”_

_Jack cried in her arms the whole way back to the U.S. base and they got her into the infirmary where the doctors dressed her wounds and got her something to eat and drink before she was left to rest in her bed. Not long after one of the nurses left, Vance entered the tent, going over to stand by Jack’s side._

_“Where’s Sergeant Mann?” Jack asked him._

_“It’s actually Lieutenant Colonel now.” Hollis said as she stepped into the tent behind Leon, smiling down at her old recruit. “I’m so glad we got you out of there.”_

_“We have some news, Jack.” Vance said, his hands behind his back. “Masahun and his men were just killed in the airstrike. It’s all over now.”_

_Jack let out a sigh of relief, letting her head fall back against her pillow. “Thank God.” She looked between Leon and Hollis for a moment before she spoke again. “Can Lieutenant Colonel Mann and I have a minute alone?”_

_“Of course.” Vance nodded and turned to leave, but before he did, he looked back at Jack. “It’s good to have you back, Lieutenant Sloane.” He and Jack exchanged sad smiles before he officially left the tent._

_“Look at us.” Hollis said, moving to sit on the side of Jack’s bed. “Lieutenant….Lieutenant Colonel.”_

_“I had no doubt that one day you’d make it all the way to Commanding Officer.” Jack smiled at her. “Maybe even higher.”_

_“Actually, no….” Hollis’ smile faded a bit. “I’m retiring now before I get there.”_

_“What? Why?”_

_“Because, Jack. I never wanted this to be my full time career. It was supposed to be temporary, but I got so caught up in it that I-”_

_“You just saved my life. Think of all the other lives you could save if you stayed.” Jack begged._

_“You know I hate it when you interrupt me.” Hollis chuckled a bit. “I can save lives back at home in the U.S…..And I have. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. But the Army C.I.D asked me to come back to help look for you. Now I’m going home to my man and I’m going to retire and he and I are gonna figure out what this thing is between us.”_

_“You have a man?” Jack smiled and pinched Hollis’ arm. “Good for you.”_

_“Well, I sort of have a man. He hasn’t really answered my question about being serious yet.”_

_“Ohhhh….One of those afraid-to-commit types, huh?” Jack chuckled with an eye roll. “Of course.”_

_“Anyway….we’re not here to talk about me, Jack. Are you gonna be alright?”_

_“Now that Masahun is dead, yeah...I am.” Jack admitted, feeling no remorse for the man who beat and tortured her for nine months._

_“If you ever need anything, don’t be afraid to call me. Alright?” Hollis said._

_“Lieutenant Colonel?” A soldier popped his head through the opening to the infirmary tent. “We need you out here.”_

_Hollis sighed and looked at Jack before standing up. “You stay strong.”_

_“Just like you taught me.” Jack smiled weakly and Hollis did as well before leaning over to kiss Jack on the forehead and she left._

* * *

“That’s it? That’s the last time you saw her?” McGee asked.

“When she saved your life in Afghanistan?” Nick added.

“Mhm” Jack nodded. “She said we could keep in touch, but we never exchanged addresses or phone numbers….again. She was brought back to the U.S. for another C.I.D related case and I was soon discharged from the army and went back home to California. Ten years later, Leon offered me a job here.”

“Do you miss her?” Ellie asked.

“Wait….Maybe we can find her for you.” Kasie suggested. “What’s her name?”

“Hollis Mann.” Jack answered, taking a nacho chip from Nick’s plate.

The whole table went silent again and Jack ate her chip, looking around at them all. “What?” She asked.

“Lieutenant Colonel Hollis Mann?” McGee said to himself. “And you said she worked for the C.I.D.?”

“Yeah….Why?” Jack asked, receiving no answers and she looked at Kasie.

“Don’t look at me, I have no idea what’s going on.” Kasie put her hands up in defense.

“Yeah, neither do I.” Nick said.

Jack looked to Jimmy, knowing he would most likely be the one to crack. “Uhhhh….” Jimmy looked to Gibbs.

Jack followed Jimmy’s eyes and looked to Gibbs as well. He was frozen, just looking at Jack for a while before he slowly stood up and went outside.

“What? What’s wrong?” Jack asked the table now that he was gone.

“Hollis was, uh...one of Gibbs’ almost-wives.” McGee admitted.

“What?!” Jack’s eyes widened.

“Remember how you said she was telling you about a man who was having a hard time committing?” McGee asked her.

“Gibbs!?” Jack asked like it was ridiculous. “That was….Gibbs?”

“You were captured and discharged in 2007, right?” He asked.

“Uh...yeah.”

“Yeah, that’s when their relationship ended.” Ellie recalled learning about it years later when Hollis had come back from Hawaii and did two more cases with them for the D.O.D. “Now that I think about it...Gibbs never really dated again after that.”

Jack stood up, grabbing her jacket and leaving the bar.

“What’d I say?” Ellie asked.

Everyone shrugged and watched Jack walk out the door.

“Hey….Hey!” Jack shouted as she tried to catch up to Gibbs who was walking down the street away from the bar. “Hey!” She said again, practically jogging to catch up to him.

“What?” Gibbs asked with annoyance, stopping and turning to face her.

“Don’t get like that with me.” Jack shook her head at his attitude. “How was I supposed to know that my old mentor was your girlfriend? Which, by the way, is a little weird for me too.”

“It’s not weird. Why would it be weird?” He asked, almost cluelessly.

“Why would you walk out of the bar?” Jack raised an eyebrow and Gibbs looked away without answering. “Exactly.” The blonde nodded. “You and I both know that whatever has been going on between us the last three years is a lot more than friendship. When were you going to admit it? Never? Because of something Hollis did? I’m not her, Gibbs. You don’t have to be afraid to commit to me.”

“I’m not afraid of committing to **_anybody!_** ” He replied with more irritation than before. “I’m afraid of ** _losing them.”_** He finally admitted.

“Ah.” Jack nodded as if she already knew that was his problem. “Got a little advice for you, Leroy. Everyone is. It doesn’t mean you just push us all away. I see you trying to hide your enjoyment when you come out for drinks with us. You distance yourself from the team because you don’t want to get too attached. But you and I both know it’s already too late. You’re stuck….And you love them. And they would like to hear it from you from time to time. Stop being so stubborn and just-”

Before Jack could finish her sentence, Gibbs interrupted her with a kiss, holding her face in both his hands. The blonde was shocked by it at first, but it didn’t take long before she was kissing him back, letting her hands move up to hold his ribs.

Gibbs smiled into the kiss and soon pulled away to tell her…. “You talk too much.”

Jack smiled with an eye roll, “Shut up,” and she pulled him in for another kiss.

* * *

**A/N: Hey, readers. I hope you liked this. While doing research before I even started writing this fic, I did actually find out that Gibbs and Hollis were dating in 2007 which was exactly when Jack was being held captive by Masahun so I of course had to add that into this idea I had. Also...I was intending on this being the end of this fic, but with some of the comments I’ve been getting, I’m expecting you all to want more. So if that is the case, then I may write some more for this one. But I also may just keep this as the ending, I’m not sure yet. Let me know how you feel in the comments/reviews. Love you guys. MWAH!**

**Also...shoutout to coffeeadict00 on fanfiction.net for guessing that the drill sergeant was Hollis Mann during Chapter 2!!!!! KUDOS!**


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